Assessment Over
by Grabbag Lapidary
Summary: 2012MovieVerse. Set immediately after Dredd tells the Chief Judge that Anderson is a pass. Very short little "extra scene" which details the conversation where he tells her she's going to be a Judge.


**A/n :** For detailed author's notes for this story, please see the end. For general notes about my "Dredd" fics, please see my profile.

This story takes place (fairly obviously) _immediately_ after the 2012 movie.

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**Assessment Over**

"Anderson."

The voice was the same as it always had been – deep, grating, measured, unexcited and emotionless. It reminded Cassandra of a saw cutting through bone – surgical, precise, unconcerned with anything except the end result. She turned and looked at him, her face working with brief emotion. She ran her eyes over him, over the uniform, the badge, everything he represented and what she thought she could be.

She'd made a difference, she knew that. She had to know that, or her life had been wasted. She hadn't wanted to make her family proud, or to make a stand for muties, or to make up that 3%. She'd just wanted to make a difference to the city.

She'd done enough. She just had to keep telling herself that.

"Your assessment's now over."

She did not react, except to reach up and unclip her badge from her uniform. She held it out to him, looking down at it, running her thumb almost lovingly over the dull bronze. Her name, amid the eagle.

He didn't immediately take it and, when he did, he did not pull it toward him, rather holding it in place almost as if he didn't want it. She looked back up at him, ran her eyes over him again and then lowered her gaze. She walked away without a backward glance, barely acknowledging the Chief Judge with a curt, "Sir."

She walked past the Medi-Teks, brushing off their offer of help – for all his brutality, for all the deadliness of his hands, Dredd's field-surgery had been quick, clean, precise. She doubted there was anything the Medi-Teks could do to improve it. She'd clean up at home, change the dressing herself. She had the training to do that right, at least.

The SMG was unbalanced in her hand – bigger than the lawgiver, less compact, the mass distributed differently. She lifted it, shucked the magazine and cleared the chamber, looking around for somewhere to put it. She didn't want to just drop it, putting a weapon J-Dept had taken off them literally back on the streets.

"I'll take that."

She closed her eyes and the muscles at the points of her jaw bunched. She forced herself to be calm, pulled herself together. Of course. She turned around, holding the weapon out to Dredd hilt first. "Sorry," she said. She didn't sound particularly sincere. "Judge," she added pointedly.

Judge. Not 'Sir', not 'Dredd'. _Judge_. The distinction wasn't a difference in rank or name, but rather status. He was a Judge. She was – at best – a citizen. At worst, a wash-out and a failure.

He took the gun without looking at it, did not check to see if the chamber was empty. "Hardly the recommended sidearm, Anderson," he growled.

She gritted her teeth. "Yeah, well, I did okay with it," she said bitterly. Was he really going to do this? She'd saved his drokking _life_. Just flunk her and be done with it. "And I lost my primary weapon," she added acidly.

He kinked his head, looking at her with his visor askew. "You kept your head," he said. He didn't smile, but there was a slight modification to the perma-frown of his lips. He glanced down at her chest. "Why are you out of uniform?"

She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide. She was surprised she didn't feel hope along with her surprise. Was that her precognition telling her her gut was wrong, or something else? "Sir?" she asked.

"I said your assessment was over." Dredd lifted his hand and pushed the bronze shield back into place. It gleamed in the bright sunlight – had he taken a moment to _polish_ it for her? "I didn't say anything else." Now the frown definitely modified itself. "_Judge_."

She looked down at the shield on her chest, lips and eyes trembling. She reached for it, did not quite touch it. "I lost my primary weapon," she repeated.

He shook his head and reached forward, tapped her on the temple. "Like I said," he told her, "you kept your head." He dropped his hand to his thigh and slapped his own lawgiver. "This isn't how you're going to enforce the law, Anderson," he said.

She blinked a couple of times, breathed deeply and furrowed her brow. "You said abetting a felon was a fail offense and a crime. You give me a badge and not bracelets?" She lifted her wrists, almost taunting him.

Dredd nodded. "I did say that," he admitted, "but I didn't say you did it. I asked you to explain yourself. You did, you argued your case." He shrugged. "If I'd disagreed, I'd have arrested you then, not taken you with me to deal with Ma-Ma."

Slowly, she nodded. "Yeah," she agreed, "you would have done." She looked up at him, thought about thanking him, thought better of it. "So," she asked, "what now?"

"Your patrol shift begins tomorrow at oh-nine-hundred hours," he said matter-of-factly. "Report to sector house thirteen at oh-eight-forty-five for briefing and admin paperwork. Bring whatever you want to dump in your locker. Formal ceremony with the Chief Judge is at the Hall of Justice at oh-eight-hundred, but for now put up your right hand."

She didn't move. "I mean . . ." she began. "That's it? Just . . .report for duty?"

"You expected more?" Dredd didn't wait for an answer. "Put up your right hand," he ordered. He reached behind his hip, pulled a small leather-bound book from a pouch on his belt and held it out to her. For an instant she looked at it – she knew what it was, of course; The Law of Mega City One. Condensed, abridged, on onion-skin paper, teeny-tiny print, but still – The Law. All Judges carried it; she'd be given her own copy tomorrow morning at the Hall of Justice. Dredd's copy was as old as his career – the covers were worn, the binding scuffed, the edges of the pages stained and crumpled. The gold leaf on the cover was almost rubbed away, leaving the letters as depressions in the leather.

She'd take her oath tomorrow – the formal swearing-in ceremony with the Chief Judge – on her own copy of The Law. She'd put her left hand on it and raise her right and swear the oath and then close her fingers around that little book and never let it go.

There was no reason for Dredd to let her take her oath now, on his copy of The Law. Not that he couldn't, of course – the oath was to The Law, not to the Chief Judge or even the Justice Department. The Law was The Law – she could probably technically speaking take the oath alone, with no witnesses except the book itself, and still have it count.

It was a gesture she appreciated – she felt a lump in her throat and her eyes moisten – although she wasn't sure either of them understood precisely why. "Thank you, Sir," she managed, reaching out to lay her left hand on it. She lifted her right.

She looked him dead in the visor – there was no better personification of The Law than the faceless visage of a Judge's helmet – and recited smoothly and without a hitch from memory words she'd never spoken aloud or practiced before;

"I, Cassandra Anderson, of my own free will and with full knowledge of the import and permanence of this oath, do solemnly swear to obey, enforce and uphold The Law as a Judge of Mega City One from this instant until my death. I promise impartiality and equal treatment under The Law to all – be they citizen, Judge, or alien. This I swear on The Law of Mega City One."

For a second she stood silently, blinking once or twice, and then she lowered her shaking right hand and slid her left off The Law, her fingers lingering on the cover. She reached up and touched her badge with trembling fingertips. Her breath shuddered in her chest. "Wow," she breathed.

Dredd glanced over his shoulder before leaning into her. "Meet me at the main armory oh-seven-thirty tomorrow," he said. "I'll square away the paperwork for a new lawgiver. Teks'll calibrate it for you."

She realized what he was doing for her – she _had_ lost her primary weapon during her assessment. That would have to be dealt with by her assessor. It wasn't something that could easily be explained away. "Bending the rules for me?" she asked. She thought she'd never wanted special treatment, but now she – suddenly – realized she always had, and always needed it. She was, after all, _special_. She was a mutant, a psi, the most powerful the Justice Department had encountered. She was different, and needed to be treated differently for it to be fair.

As she realized that, she realized Dredd had realized it too. He shook his head, confirming her suspicions. "No," he said, "just dispensing justice." Almost awkwardly, he held out his hand to her. "Congratulations," he offered, the emotion twisting uncomfortably in his mouth. She smiled warmly and shook his hand.

"Thank you," she said softly, "for everything."

He nodded. "See you at oh-seven-thirty," he said. She did not let his hand go and shook her head.

"Seven-hundred," she told him.

"What?" he growled.

"Tomorrow," she said brightly-but-firmly, "oh-seven-hundred in the canteen. I'm buying you breakfast. Sosij, toast, those things they try to pass off as scrambled ecks and _real_ coffee." He looked at her almost as if he thought she were joking. "Breakfast's a big deal for me," she explained.

The very corner of Dredd's mouth twitched. "Most important meal of the day," he agreed. He seemed to consider. "Maybe some vit-see-skweez, too," he said. "Gotta get your vitamins."

She sounded almost surprised. "So, you'll be there?" she asked.

He nodded. "Oh-seven-hundred, the canteen." She smiled and shook his hand again, only then letting go. "Go home," he told her. "Clean up, get some rest. Big day tomorrow."

She tossed her head almost dismissively. "It's always gonna be," she told him. "It's a big city out there."

**A/n :** This is just a little short piece I threw together after watching the 2012 _Dredd_ movie with Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby. I thought the movie was a wonderful adaptation of the source material, and worked really well as a Judge Dredd movie. Obviously, the movie ends when it should end – we don't need anything else except Dredd's monologue over Anderson walking to her bike and speeding off down the streets.

But there must have been a conversation where Anderson was told she had, in fact, passed the assessment. So, here it is.

A note on terminology; I've followed the comics' lead in using "psi" (pronounced "si") rather than the movie's "psychic" for those with mental powers.

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